Little Criminals Read online

  LITTLE CRIMINALS

  After seven non-fiction books, veteran journalist Gene Kerrigan received critical acclaim in Ireland, the UK and the USA for his first two novels, Little Criminals and The Midnight Choir. His most recent novel is Dark Times in the City. He lives in Dublin.

  About the Book

  This is a terrific novel, tense and exciting. I spun through it quicker than it takes to tell ... tremendous’

  Independent on Sunday

  ‘He writes with a light touch that makes his darker final chapters all the more disturbing’ Daily Telegraph

  Justin and Angela Kennedy have money, love, children and a limitless future. Jo-Jo Mackendrick is a pillar of Dublin gangland society; a man determined that nothing will endanger his hard-earned supremacy. Into their lives comes Frankie Crowe, an ambitious criminal tired of risking his life for small change. Kidnap could be the first step on his climb to a better life, and he knows just the kind of dangerous men to make it happen…

  ‘A great writer, a great story, relentless and brilliant’ Roddy Doyle

  ‘A savage X-ray picture of contemporary Ireland…beautifully etched characters’ Guardian

  ALSO BY GENE KERRIGAN

  Novels

  The Midnight Choir

  Dark Times in the City

  Non-fiction

  Round Up the Usual Suspects (with Derek Dunne)

  Nothing but the Truth

  Goodbye to All That (with Derek Speirs)

  Hard Cases

  Another Country

  This Great Little Nation (with Pat Brennan)

  Never Make A Promise You Can’t Break

  GENE KERRIGAN

  Little Criminals

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Also by Gene Kerrigan

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgements

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781409015772

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Vintage 2005

  4 6 8 10 9 7 5

  Copyright © Gene Kerrigan 2005

  Gene Kerrigan has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and

  Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Vintage

  Vintage

  Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

  London SW1V 2SA

  www.vintage-books.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780099481492

  This is for my daughter,

  Cathleen Kerrigan

  From where he lay, with only the light from the street lamp outside his flat, Stephen Beckett could see the gun on the bedside table. The Colt .45 pistol rested on the red and white hand towel, level with his gaze. Old and worn, big, grey and ugly.

  A bit like me.

  It was some time after two o’clock. If he didn’t get some sleep, it wouldn’t matter what he decided in the morning. He wouldn’t have the strength to hold the gun, let alone use it.

  He closed his eyes, but that didn’t help, his mind was still full of the gun and all it meant.

  He opened his eyes and forced himself to turn over on to his back. The tiredness seemed to have hollowed out his bones. Some fool drove by too fast and the roar of the engine was accompanied by a pattern of light gliding across the ceiling.

  It has to be done.

  After he’d come to bed and spent most of an hour thinking about what he had to do, he tried to push his mind on to something else, in the hope that he might drift off to sleep. No chance. There was no other thought strong enough to gain space in his head. This thing crowded out everything else in the world and he knew that was a mark of how messed up he was.

  The little fucker.

  There were people who took short cuts through other people’s lives, didn’t give a damn what harm they did. Sometimes, what mattered wasn’t just the damage they left after them, it was the reckless contempt of it. It’s like some lives matter and other people exist just to populate the landscape.

  It has to be done.

  Stephen Beckett had lived too long to mistake this urge for anything other than what it was – the need for revenge. At any other time of his life, he might have found a reason to step back. Now, the way things were, his sense of caution was feeble and there were more important things than right and wrong. Stuff like that belonged in another life, before the shooting began.

  1

  The shooting began in the small town of Harte’s Cross, a few minutes after ten o’clock one chilly summer morning. At first, only a few people knew there was anything wrong, and they were all in Sweeney’s Pub.

  The pub owner was pleading for her life. She was a small-town throwback, aged about fifty, wearing heavy spectacles and settled into her plumpness, with the hair and the clothes of her mother’s generation. She hardly saw Frankie Crowe standing in front of her. Instead her gaze was fastened to the big black gun in his hand.

  ‘Please, mister,’ she said. Frankie Crowe was twenty-eight.

  Frankie Crowe had a Homer Simpson baseball cap pulled down low on his forehead, a large pair of thick-rimmed glasses hiding the shape of his face. Under his bulky beige anorak, he might have been thin or fat or anything in between. The large automatic he was holding was pointed at no one in particular, but it was the centre of attention.

  There was just the one barman on duty, just as Leo had said there would be. And he was no problem. Hands flat on the counter, carefully avoiding eye contact with Frankie Crowe.

  Of the three customers in the pub, two were sitting in a booth across from the bar, old men with faces the colour of stale porridge. One of the wrinklies, a pinch-mouthed little man with a stained and misshapen felt hat, had his arms held rigidly above his head, not that Crowe had given him any instructions. The old man knew, from the Bogart movies he’d seen more than hal
f a century ago, that that’s what you do when someone pulls out a gun.

  The other man was bigger and well built, with a slight stoop to his back that disguised his height. One hand cradled a teacup as he stared at the gunman without emotion.

  The third customer was a young woman with very short black hair, a ring through her left eyebrow and a baby held in a sling on her chest. She was sitting at a table near the window, her own coffee and the baby’s half-empty bottle in front of her. When she saw Frankie Crowe come in with a gun in his hand she stood up and made for the door, but Frankie just shook his head and used his gun hand to wave her back to the table. The woman sat down, one arm supporting the baby’s sling.

  She didn’t even see Martin Paxton, standing just inside the door, a dark baseball hat worn low on his forehead, a handgun held down by his leg, until Frankie said, ‘Keep an eye,’ and took the pub owner into the office behind the bar.

  Nothing complicated, Frankie said. In and out and back home to Dublin with a rake of money, maybe fifteen grand, before anyone knows we’ve been there. Not the kind of take that would make a difference, but enough to keep things ticking over.

  It was a Monday morning. ‘Saturday night, they make a bundle, Sunday too,’ Leo Titley said. Leo was the tip-off. ‘The icing on the cake is, Saturday night coming up they have a concert. Old man Sweeney, before he died, bought out the kip next door, broke through, fixed it up with a stage. They do a gig every month or so and it takes maybe five hundred punters.’

  ‘The bank has a night safe?’

  ‘None,’ Leo Titley said. ‘That’s the beauty of it. They lodge the takings next day. Mrs S does it herself, noon on the dot. Local cop walks her down the street. Guy I know used to work there a few years back, said there’s a safe in the back room. Two nights’ takings and the gig money, waiting to be banked Monday morning.’

  And the great thing about the gig, Leo said, was it was nothing special. If it was a name act, there’d be advance booking. This was all money at the door. A couple of losers from a boy band that never happened. It broke up and three of them went back to scratching their arses, the other two were earning peanuts hawking their out-of-tune cover versions around the provincial pub circuit.

  ‘Money at the door. The pubs love it, taxman never sees a cent.’

  And Monday morning, before they can get the cash into the bank, Frankie Crowe and Martin Paxton are sitting in the pub car park in a stolen Primera.

  ‘The pub opens at ten thirty,’ Leo said. ‘You go in, wave a gun and the safe opens.’

  That was the plan.

  The old bitch’s legs were trembling when she came out of the back room, so Frankie gave her a shove to hurry her up. The woman moved as fast as she could, putting the counter between herself and Frankie.

  ‘Time lock, she says,’ Frankie said.

  Martin made a pissed-off noise and hit the door with the butt of his gun.

  ‘Says she can’t open it for another hour and a half. She’s bullshitting.’ He pointed his gun at the barman, his hands still flat on the counter. ‘You know the combination?’

  The man swallowed, shook his head. He was wearing a short red waistcoat that showed his white shirt bunched up at the top of his trousers. His voice was thin, like he was squeezing the words out through his fear. ‘She’s telling the truth. She got the new safe last year, couple of young fellas broke in one night, nearly got the back off the old one.’ He looked at Frankie as if he was judging how his story was going over. ‘Can’t be opened until twelve o’clock. That’s when the garda comes, to keep an eye while she’s banking it.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  Frankie looked at Martin and said, ‘Old bitch is lying, this cunt too.’

  ‘Please, mister! For the love of God, this is all there is!’ The woman had the register open and was holding up a handful of notes.

  She held the money out towards Frankie. When he got within reach he knocked the money out of her hand and grabbed the front of her blouse. She closed her eyes as he screamed in her face. ‘Open the fucking safe!’

  The young woman with the baby made soothing sounds and cradled her bundle in front of her. Its head tilted sideways, the baby stared with frank interest at the angry man and his colourful hat.

  Over at the door, Martin Paxton said, ‘Ah shit,’ then he leaned back against the door, opening it slightly. ‘Come on,’ he said. He waited, and when Frankie ignored him he pushed the door open and walked out.

  Crowe shouted, ‘Bitch!’ and let go of the woman’s blouse. She was close to passing out, sweat rising on her forehead and along her quivering upper lip.

  The tall elderly man who hadn’t raised his hands had a loud voice. ‘Leave her alone, you. Leave her alone.’

  Crowe turned and saw an old fool, a hillbilly with big, gnarled hands, untidy hair and a face pitted with time.

  The old guy stood up. ‘Coming down here, waving a gun. Why don’t you work for your money, the same as the rest of us?’

  Crowe looked at him like the old man was a peculiar species he hadn’t yet come across. He walked slowly towards the booth, until he was no more than two or three feet from the old man. ‘Who the fuck’re you, grandad? Sir Galahad?’ He pointed the gun at the old man’s crotch. The hillbilly tried desperately not to flinch. Crowe grinned.

  ‘You have balls, grandad. You want to keep them?’

  The old man stared. Beside him, still sitting, raised hands trembling, his small friend kept his gaze fixed on the surface of the table in front of him. Frankie made a dismissive sound and turned back to the pub owner. ‘It’s make your mind up time.’ He pointed the gun at her head and his voice was casual. ‘One, two—’

  The shooting came at the end of a period – more than a year – in which a lot of things didn’t quite work out. By now, Frankie Crowe and Martin Paxton were supposed to be on their way somewhere. Instead, they were here in a small town in County Meath, still scrounging for the rent.

  The town’s kids were at school, the farmers and their labourers were off in the countryside doing whatever farmers do. It was mostly women shopping, and mostly elderly women, that were to be seen on the streets that morning. There was a drinks lorry delivering a palletload to Harte’s Cross’s only hotel. A couple of old lads squinting at yesterday’s results in the window of a bookie’s. A limping man pushing a Calor gas cylinder in a child’s buggy. Two dogs being walked by a white-haired old woman in a scarlet tracksuit.

  And one cop.

  The garda was standing alongside a car about twenty yards down the street from Sweeney’s Pub, chatting up a young woman.

  He hadn’t been there when they arrived. Now, Martin Paxton got into the Primera in Sweeney’s car park and kept an eye on him.

  The cop had a Boy Scout face. Uniform a little on the loose side. He was watching the woman’s backside as she leaned into the car to drape a collection of dry-cleaned clothes across the back seat. Paxton smiled. Naughty boy. The woman, it seemed to Paxton, was too pretty and too sure of herself for a chinless wonder of a culchie cop fresh out of Templemore. She sat halfway into the driver’s seat, smiling, nodding, idly touching the ends of her loose blonde hair as the garda leaned on the car and rabbited away at her.

  Across the street, in the window of a clothes shop, a shop assistant was fitting a flowery summer dress to a mannequin. The shop, like the MegaMarket and the petrol station halfway down the street, belonged to the pub owner’s family.

  A mud-spattered tractor chugged past, towing a trailer from which dripped a steady trail of something dark, green and smelly.

  Two elderly women, all headscarves, knowing eyes and fluttering lips, stood outside Tubridy’s newsagent’s, dispensing more gossip than any combination of the trashy magazines on the shelves inside.

  Most people within hearing range paid little attention to the first shot. It was a flat smack of sound that could have been several things. Martin Paxton looked to the mirror and saw the garda push himself away from the woman’s c
ar and glance around, unsure of himself.

  Not even the boy copper could mistake the second shot for something else.

  Somewhere in the distance, there was the sound of someone screaming.

  The garda moved into the middle of the street, looking up and down, trying to decide what to do, knowing that civilians nearby were looking in his direction. The woman he’d been talking to swivelled round in her seat and pulled the door of the car shut.

  Martin Paxton started the engine of the Primera and waited.

  Inside Sweeney’s Pub, one of the owner’s hands was clasped across her mouth, the other was holding on to her hair. Her eyes were closed, her lips tight, her breathing fast. There was a bullet hole in the Guinness mirror behind the counter. A second bullet had shattered the display screen of the cash register.

  The barman was bent forward, hands on the counter, head to one side, as though he was determined not to see whatever happened next. There was a burning smell in the air.

  The woman with the baby had turned her back and was cowering, putting the slender width of her body between the gun and her child. The small pinch-faced old man with his hands up had pissed himself, leaving a big dark patch all down his white trousers. The ballsy old hillbilly had raised his hands.

  Frankie Crowe fired three more shots – one into the wide-screen television set high up on the end wall of the pub, two more into a second screen in an alcove. Another two bullets hit an electronic quiz machine. The eighth shattered a bottle of vodka a foot from the pub owner’s head.

  Crowe made a noise of disgust. She was out of it, so far into fear that she was beyond threats. Besides, what was the fucking point? She had to be telling the truth.

  Crowe picked up the banknotes from where the old bitch had dropped them on the counter. As he reached the pub door, he put the money and his gun into his anorak pockets, made sure Homer Simpson was firmly in place, then he opened the door and stepped outside.